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What's the most effective way to scale a customer success team beyond the first customer success manager?

Conor Holmes

Confluent Senior Director of CS & Account Management • 3y

Scaling customer success doesn't necessarily mean adding more CS headcount, at least not immediately. Before that, some foundations and a solid go-to-market framework sho...

1,379 Views

What's your framework to prioritizing needs/deliverables when you're the first customer success manager at a company establishing the function?

Jeff Beaumont

Customer Success Consultant • 2y

Before I start, know this is a difficult question to answer.Here is how I approach it:Review the job description and make sure I understand itReview it with my manager to...

1,763 Views

For a Series A company, what's the most cost effective but purposeful tech stack you'd recommend to start their CS journey?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 8mo

It's not really series dependent, but if you're just starting out and have less than 100 renewals my go to tools in the tech stack are the following:Front- love them for ...

549 Views

How do you manage the workload and caseload distribution between traditional CSMs and tech-enabled team members to optimize efficiency?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 2mo

When distributing the book across the team, you often have to start by drawing a line in the sand. I’m a fan of picking a clear, even if slightly arbitrary, threshold (ty...

372 Views

What are some examples of programs or events you've run and ways in which you measured success?

Chris Adams

LinkedIn Head of Customer Success, Search & Staffing Market, North America • 7mo

Design programs to change customer behavior in service of outcomes, and measure success with leading indicators that predict value and verified ROI (not just sentiment). ...

871 Views

How do you decide between high-touch, tech-touch, and automation for different segments?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 2mo

To get the balance right, you have to look beyond just the ACV. It’s about matching the effort to the complexity + the potential of the account. You want to clear the pa...

371 Views

What strategies do you use to personalize automated interactions and make them feel as engaging and relevant as those with traditional CSMs?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 2mo

Scaling your CS efforts doesn’t have to mean losing the human touch. The goal is to move away from robotic scripts and toward interactions that actually feel intuitive. I...

437 Views

What's the single biggest mistake founders make when establishing their first CS function, and when should that first CSM really be hired?

Cormac Kelly

SurveyMonkey VP of Customer Success | Formerly Microsoft • 6mo

In my experience, the biggest mistake is ambiguity of purpose, or lack of clarity of purpose. A founder shouldn't hire their first CSM to figure out how to make customers...

546 Views

What does your customer success team org structure look like?

Jeff Beaumont

Customer Success Consultant • 2y

This can vary wildly.AreasIt depends…CSM/Pooled CSMDigitalRenewalsSupportProfessional ServicesImplementationEducationOperations/strategyEnablementSo when you look at all ...

1,395 Views

How do you structure CS teams for both efficiency AND customer centricity without killing culture?

Cormac Kelly

SurveyMonkey VP of Customer Success | Formerly Microsoft • 6mo

Honestly, This is such a great question. Too often, leaders feel they have to choose: you either run a lean, efficient machine that quite honestly can feel robotic to the...

595 Views

What is the best way for CS reps to manage relationships with accounts where the "champions" are always changing and the value of your business is always having to be restated to knew employees?

Ben Terrill

Seso Head of Customer Success | Formerly Brex, Finn AI, Mobify • 3y

This is a tough one. I generally view these as “lite sales cycle” which it sounds like you do as well. If the account is large enough - a multi-level engagement strategy ...

3,778 Views

How does a CS team's structure need to adapt as a company grows from Series A to Series C, especially balancing high-touch and tech-touch?

Chris Adams

LinkedIn Head of Customer Success, Search & Staffing Market, North America • 7mo

As a company grows from Series A to Series C, your CS org should evolve from a scrappy, high‑touch generalist model to a segmented, hybrid motion—keeping high‑touch for s...

1,096 Views

For product-led growth companies, how does the CS team's approach and structure fundamentally differ from a traditional sales-led model?

Chris Adams

LinkedIn Head of Customer Success, Search & Staffing Market, North America • 7mo

For product-led growth (PLG) companies, Customer Success looks very different from a traditional sales-led model—and the biggest difference comes down to scale and starti...

1,321 Views

What are the CS metrics you use that actually predict revenue growth vs. vanity metrics?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 8mo

I look at 3 metrics in addition to the standard GRR, NRR, and CSAT; LRR, Speed to Adoption, and multi-product line adoption. LRR (logo retention): especially in the SMB s...

426 Views

What's your approach to implementing AI in CS without replacing your team's relationships with customers?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 8mo

It's absolutely a balancing act. I broke down the specifics of how we use AI on our CS teams to improve efficiency and enable us to hire more strategically and we discuss...

464 Views

What's the biggest mistake you see when scaling from 2 CSMs to 10 CSMs?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 8mo

I've lived this one and it was PAINFUL. The biggest mistake for me as I've grown teams is not hiring my first line manager fast enough. At one point I was doing 18 1:1s p...

518 Views

Beyond churn, what's one crucial CS metric Series B leaders often overlook that directly impacts NRR at scale?

Nina Wilkinson

ScaleUp CS Partner | Formerly Apollo, Lob, Canary Technologies • 8mo

For me, without a doubt, it's Logo Retention (LRR), especially in the SMB/MM space. While everyone's chasing that shiny Net Revenue Retention number, many leaders are usi...

970 Views

As a hiring manager, what do the best customer success candidates have in common?

Jessica Broderick

Ashby Global Head of Solutions Engineering • 3y

The best customer success candidates possess the following traits: Relationship Building Skills. The ability to develop positive, trust-based relationships while adding...

2,385 Views

What are the key processes you'd set up when expanding the customer success team from 1 to multiple people?

Michael Maday

Payscale Vice President - Customer Success & Implementation • 2y

Key initiatives for a nascent Customer Success team to establish include:1. Implementation of a robust Health Score framework capable of forecasting both risks and opport...

745 Views

If your customer success team has only one or two people responsible for covering multiple products with complex features, how would you recommend dividing workload in the short-term so as best to support long-term growth and expansion of the team?

Conor Holmes

Confluent Senior Director of CS & Account Management • 3y

This is undoubtedly a challenging scenario. Here are recommendations for smaller customer success teams to follow in this situation.Understand the highest priorities for ...

1,355 Views

How do you communicate customer success updates and activities to the rest of the company?

Jessica Broderick

Ashby Global Head of Solutions Engineering • 3y

The most important aspect of communicating customer success activities to the company is identifying what each department cares about. The update provided to a Sales team...

1,541 Views

Do you have any advice for a junior who is a first customer success hire?

Conor Holmes

Confluent Senior Director of CS & Account Management • 3y

The first customer success hire (especially if you are more junior) is both daunting but equally an excellent opportunity to impact the business. As a more junior hire, y...

833 Views

What are the best ways to get ahead of potential churn, to see the signs and stop it from happening?

Jessica Broderick

Ashby Global Head of Solutions Engineering • 3y

The first step to knowing if a client is at risk of churning is to identify the potential warning signs: Lack of Engagement Client Turnover Service/Support Issues Econom...

2,188 Views

Customer Success Team · Scaling a Customer Success Team